Dealing with Craftworld Wraithknights

This is very true, a decent opponent wouldnt allow the CTC get close enough to pose a proper threat to the wraithknight. With it being able to move 12 it would have a good chance at keeping a reliable distance from them. Probably the biggest problem with the CTC is their speed even though they do have scout.

And with those D-Cannons WK:s might kill a Talos or two before assault.

I have killed 2 so far and faced 2. They usually die on turn 1 or 2. They are hugging cover but mainly....dark lances. I killed my last one on turn 1 and shot 12 dark lances and somewhere in the neighborhood of 52 poison shots at it. I didn't get to fire all the last shots from the last gunboat.

JackKnife01 wrote:

I have killed 2 so far and faced 2. They usually die on turn 1 or 2. They are hugging cover but mainly....dark lances. I killed my last one on turn 1 and shot 12 dark lances and somewhere in the neighborhood of 52 poison shots at it. I didn't get to fire all the last shots from the last gunboat.

As mentioned above with the CTC though, you've just dedicated (for example), 3 Ravagers, 3 Raiders, 3 Venoms and a few units of Kabalites to the destruction of a single 300 point unit? That's about 900 points and still leaves the rest of the Eldar army pretty much untouched.

I usually WWP a unit of Wraithguard with D-Scythe and murder them on turn 2.
It's a dirty unit I reserve for player who insist on playing Super Heavies or GMC

Wow.. beating Eldar with Eldar is creative. Why not skip the DE part entirely? Makes the army much stronger.

From my experience with the new craft world generally the wraith knight is the only thing on the table besides a wave serpent with fire dragons/dire avengers. The bikes come in from reserve, so in may have put 900 pts into a wraith knight for a turn, but I killed it and I was ready for the bikes without having to worry about it. So if all you are going to do is comment how we don't have something in our codex that can take down a wraith knight for 315 pts(believe that is the cost for it upgraded) then why bothering posting? We all know this, it has been said before. Wraithknoghts are undercoat for what they bring. If you say that realistically that is bad then congrats, welcome to 40k. Why not just play eldar. I really am getting g tired of all the fallback line "more points than a wraith knight to deal with a wraith knight."

JackKnife01 wrote:

From my experience with the new craft world generally the wraith knight is the only thing on the table besides a wave serpent with fire dragons/dire avengers. The bikes come in from reserve, so in may have put 900 pts into a wraith knight for a turn, but I killed it and I was ready for the bikes without having to worry about it. So if all you are going to do is comment how we don't have something in our codex that can take down a wraith knight for 315 pts(believe that is the cost for it upgraded) then why bothering posting? We all know this, it has been said before. Wraithknoghts are undercoat for what they bring. If you say that realistically that is bad then congrats, welcome to 40k. Why not just play eldar. I really am getting g tired of all the fallback line "more points than a wraith knight to deal with a wraith knight."

The point is not that we have nothing that can deal with the WK for an equivalent amount of points. It's that we have nothing that can deal with the WK for less than 2 or 3 times its points! And if you're tired of reading that then don't bother reading until we get a new codex cos it damn sure ain't changing anytime before then (if ever).

Since when hasn't our army's main weapon focus fire? Death by a thousand shots (more accurate than cuts)? GW hates us, got it, but seriously all the complaining is really more or less annoying. Everywhere you go "eldar do it better", well that is all fine and dandy for eldar but I don't play them so let's focus on what this site is suppose to help. Dark Eldar players not Eldar. Last time I checked it is the Dark City not Craft world visiting the Dark City. WraithKnights are uncost, noted. Focus fire, our only answer really to every army as I see it. When I see someone with our army win that is because they focused on the big obsticle, killed it and started cutting up the army.

This is a thread about Wraithknights, and how to deal with them. If we did not mention the fact that they are extremely tough to deal with and that there is little or nothing in our codex that can do so reliably without dedicating an obscene portion of our army to the task then we're not really doing much good.

And if focus fire is the only answer we have to every army then we may as well just have one thread for tactics.

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And if focus fire is the only answer we have to every army then we may as well just have one thread for tactics.

Also don't forget to mention that in the mind of some people here your opponent is always tactical inept doesn't know how to utilize his units and never ever has hear anything about target priority or movement.
Add to this that obviously the rest of his army (which has more firepower and is as fast as yours while beeing more durable) is just sitting there doing nothing as you dedicate 900 points to get rid of ONE model.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

Wow.. beating Eldar with Eldar is creative. Why not skip the DE part entirely? Makes the army much stronger.

You can get as creative as you want but the fact is we have nothing that can deal with a WK for a equivalent amount of points. Enjoy raging against how overpowered the craftworld Eldars are meanwhile, I'll enjoy playing my pure DE list because pretty much everyone at my club stopped playing SH/GMC because of the dirty trick I mentionned, which leave me free to build lists that can't deal with a WK.

600 points for a dedicated WK killer would be alot, if that was the CTC's only function. CTCs are quite versatile given their 30 TL poison shots. That CTC can keep rockin after it mows over the WK. What other DE unit will be able to kill a WK in one round of combat AND give you a VP for it?

Sinister wrote:

600 points for a dedicated WK killer would be alot, if that was the CTC's only function. CTCs are quite versatile given their 30 TL poison shots. That CTC can keep rockin after it mows over the WK. What other DE unit will be able to kill a WK in one round of combat AND give you a VP for it?

If you manage to get the CTC into combat with the Wraithknight then I'll show you an Eldar player who's either:
a) happy to sacrifice his wraithknight
b) wants to be in combat with your CTC for whatever reason, or
c) doesn't really understand how the game or their army works.

Wraithknights are actually not so bad. They may be difficult to deal with, but they can't do anything to you that can't also be done ten times over by something else. Shoot down a venom? I'd rather be shot at by two D-Strength shots than by umpty-million S6 shots from scatter lasers and sho-ryuken cannons... at least the Wraithknight might miss. Wounds you on a roll of 2+? But everything above Strength 4 already wounds us on a 2+. No armour save against D-Strength? We get no armour save against AP 5. Can't use Feel No Pain? We can't use FNP against S6 and higher anyway.

I'd be more afraid of their bikes, vypers, and serpents, with those umpty-million S6 shots, than anything the Wraithknight has got. We have nothing that is worth the trouble of wraithknighting.

I agree. Against a DE army, the dual-heavy wraithcannon Wraithknight is not that threatening simply because we don't really have anything that isn't massively overkilled by it. Worth remembering that it can fire all it's weapons at different targets though so potentially 4 per turn, all of which are capable of doing a number on our units.

The first thing that would come to my mind is getting a lot of fleshbane in your list.
Taloi with Ichor Injectors will be able to wound him on 2+ and ignore his armour. The Neurodisruptors of the Harlequins can do the same and are pretty spamable.

It's still only one scatter laser and/or sho-ryuken cannon. For the same points, how many more could they bring if they were on bikes, or war walkers, or whatever? I'm not suggesting that the Wraithknight isn't a threat, but it's probably in fourth or fifth place compared to the rest of their stuff.

I would suggest not to sweat the Wraithknight too much. You'll be pouring dice into them forever and they still won't die, while the really scary stuff tears you to pieces, unmolested.

And ally in Harlequins! That's why our codex is so lacking, to push us into doing that.

I know its been Said before, but Psychic Powers just does wonders against them, having a Way to Lower the LD by an means and then Shrieking them will sometimes Remove them from table (with good rolls) other times will do enough damage to just take a Few lance shots to Finish them off.

But not everyone uses those Powers.

I do not find any psyker in my book.
If I wanted to ally with Eldar or lots of Harlies, I would skip the DE part altogether because it doesn't add something anyways.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

I do not find any psyker in my book.
If I wanted to ally with Eldar or lots of Harlies, I would skip the DE part altogether because it doesn't add something anyways.

Never said DE Psykers, But that is the easiest way to deal with them. You can also Load 46 Lances into one lol....

Yeah, Harlies seems the way to go. Simply have the tools and more or less effective weapons.

Other then that - focus fire with Splinter Cannons and Lances. Yes, it does means that WK is sucessfull at Fire Magnet role and tanking more then it costs, but whatever, at least you will get the bugger.

Reavers also have the tools to hurt it.

Also - Scalpel Squadron with Ossefactors.

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I would suggest not to sweat the Wraithknight too much. You'll be pouring dice into them forever and they still won't die, while the really scary stuff tears you to pieces, unmolested.

If you do erase it during one turn of shooting thats a blow for morale. There is value in killing better painted units first. Sadistic value

Since I only own DE I'm trying to try work with what i have. At this point I'm considering a few options to deal with the knight one being a Archon with blaster, WWP in a raider with a bunch of blasterborn. Hopefully that comes down turn 2 and finishes it off after already doing some wounds with my ravagers. Would locking it in CC with wyches be remotely possible? probably not as you have to get to it then in cc. Thought that if the blasterborn and archon doesn't kill him id run the archon in with a shadow field and hopefully lock it in combat then focus on the rest of the army. Along with this i thought i could use Reavers as another way to finish off the knight with the caltrops after hopefully already doing some damage. I only have 6 reavers but i can imagine a squad of 9 with 3 caltrops could be effective at knocking it out with rending.

Depending on what the opponent fields i may end up ignoring it though. I'm aware that the player im up against has a Farseer on a bike who he tries to get Invisibility then either cast that on the Wraithknight or on a Waveserpent with Wraithguard in it. So these three units are probably my main targets, depending if one gets invisibility i would focus on one of the others. All my poison will just be focusing his bikes likely.

For what it's worth, I've played a game just now against 1000 points of Craftworlders and followed my own advice. After turn 3, there was nothing left of the Craftworld army except a Wraithknight and a Hemlock Aeroplane... and then it became a matter of just trying to get out of their way. I sniped at it with a couple of dark lances and splinter cannons, hoping to get lucky and maybe get a wound or two in, but in fact I was left with half an army against a single model that I was unable to hurt, while it shot down a venom here and a raider there, and went after my Warlord.

As far as winning goes, I lost, but that was mostly down to the luck of the draw on tactical objectives. At one point he won 3 points just for casting psychic powers, and that was the difference right there, so I don't count it as a terrible defeat. In terms of feeling powerless against the Wraithknight though... yeah.